The Blue Arrow was built by the famous space-racer shipyards of Llwyngwril X. Much of its technology was originally developed for the Saeth Melyn racing spacecraft.

Power for the Blue Arrow came from a single, massive ion fusion drive, nicknamed "The Death Star".

The captain of the ship sat on the righthand side of the cockpit, as all civilised systems flew on the left side of the spacelanes and still do. He looked out over the top deck, with its two cargo hatches, which was painted in the distinctive checkerboard pattern of McKenna's All-Weather Space Trucking Co.

The Blue Arrow was the Llwyngwril X shipyard's second ship built using the SLR technique (Studs Left & Right). It was orginally built from SNOT but ended up as a green and slimey mess. This ship was the largest to come from these designers, at over 55 studs long.

The Blue Arrow is seen here leaving Earth orbit. The ship was a fairly clean and greeble free design. Having said that, the purpose of the long, red probe on the front of the ship was never determined and it was suggested that this was just a giant greeble. Other people claimed that the probe just covered up a hole in the nose of the spaceship.

Engineering problems meant that the Blue Arrow could not be painted in the checker-board pattern on its underside. This view shows the striped pattern to good effect, along with the front main cargo door. The white tube thing in front of the cargo door fell off during a crash landing on Bala II. It was discovered to be a large greeble, which the designers had used to cover up a join in the nose of the spaceship.

This view of the underside shows the doors to the bays on either side of the hold open, showing the VTOL lift thrusters and defense weapons. The Blue Arrow was armed with a twin laser canon on the port side and two Redtop missiles in the starboard bay.

In this close-up, the two landing skids have been folded down. The targeting radar for the Firestreak missiles can also be seen, folded into the port bay.

Although the cargo hold could be accessed from the cockpit and cabin area, the cargo blocked the way to the front loading ramp.

A ladder automatically folded out into the front top cargo hatch, allowing the crew to get down to the ground. The ladder was then removed to unload the cargo.

The Blue Arrow was flown by a crew of two. The cockpit was filled with a variety of high-tech navigation aids. Some of these were there to enable the ship to evade the law enforcement agencies. With its small cargo capacity but high speed and long range, the Blue Arrow was a classic smuggling ship.

The living area of the blue Arrow was small but adequate for the crew of two. It included a bed and a computer for checking for updates on MOCpages. A mechanic once told the crew that the strange grey thing on the rear bulkhead held the engine on but he was obviously joking!

This last view shows the Blue Arrow with a typical cargo. There's a nuclear canister pallette, a Classic Space container and something which may have been a generator or perhaps it was a big lump of greebles. This was a very small load for such a large ship. It wasn't until the designers on Llwyngwril X produced the Garej Glas that they showed they could build a really practical spacecraft.

Historians of the Llwyngwril X spaceship builders have claimed that the shape and colour scheme of the Blue Arrow were influenced by the 20th century spacecraft designer Chriss Foss's Blood Star Conspiracy.

This is now my favorite LEGO spaceship (not sure what my favorite ship was before, but that is besides the point!) You did a great job on this, I love the colors and the design of the ship is so smooth. It has a lot more room inside then it looks. I really need to build another LEGO spaceship, I mainly build cars now, but maybe after I finish the one I'm building now I will have time to build my own cargo ship.

Quoting Crimso Giger
I went to your MOCpage on the advice of David A. Smith and... yeah this rocks !!! Can't look at all in details right now, but even with the thumb images I'm in love with your spaceships ! I'm not too fond of grey complicated "SW like" ships, so your colorful and shiny ships are SO refreshing !
This particular one caught my eyes first. Brillant shape, made even more original but the awesome patterns. Great !

Thank you for your comments! It's all about the shapes and patterns and colours for me. Star Wars has a lot to answer for, especially when you contrast its look with the sci-fi book covers that were around at the time. The Blue Arrow is one of my favourite ships still. I'm working on a bigger delta wing ship now, which is black and yellow and over 80 studs long. I'm 1,200 bricks into the build but have had to leave it for the winter whilst I teach skiing in Verbier. Keep your eyes peeled in May!

I went to your MOCpage on the advice of David A. Smith and... yeah this rocks !!! Can't look at all in details right now, but even with the thumb images I'm in love with your spaceships ! I'm not too fond of grey complicated "SW like" ships, so your colorful and shiny ships are SO refreshing !
This particular one caught my eyes first. Brillant shape, made even more original but the awesome patterns. Great !

Quoting Tim C
Nice work here, David. I love the color configuration. Very unique. An absolutely excellent use of that Death Star. It is tough to find uses for it, and this is one of the best. The cockpit is the aesthetic highlight, but the highlight for the build as a whole is the playability. Love all the little easter eggs this one has. Awesome classic space look too. Well done.

Thank you for comments! Now that I've used it, I keep spotting the Death Star being used for all sorts of stuff on MOCpages. It could be a good competition theme. I do like to build things that I would have wanted to play with when I was 10 or 12. This MOC is a bit heavy and does take two hands to swoooosh!

Nice work here, David. I love the color configuration. Very unique. An absolutely excellent use of that Death Star. It is tough to find uses for it, and this is one of the best. The cockpit is the aesthetic highlight, but the highlight for the build as a whole is the playability. Love all the little easter eggs this one has. Awesome classic space look too. Well done.

Quoting Tamaki Kumauchi
Cool!! Looks a lot futuristic!! Just asking, but did you get the idea of the ship from the Star Destroyer from Star Wars?

Glad you enjoyed the MOC.
The inspiration was nothing to with Star Wars (apart from 1/2 a Death Star stuck on the back!). It really was Chris Foss's "Blood Star Conspiracy" painting which inspired it: there's a link in the description. http://www.chrisfossart.com/2011/04/the-blood-star-conspiracy/
Another influence was the Concorde airliner.

Quoting MortalSwordsman .
Fantastic build full of colour and style. I recognised those oldskool technic symbols straight away. We are probably of similar age. “As all civilised systems flew on the left side” hahahah brilliant

Thanks for your comments! I've had those Technic pannels since 1986. They're from kit 8660, according to Bricklink. I've been waiting to including them in a model for decades! I think that the kit was a Christmas present when I was 13.

Cool! Nice details, the cargo bay and hatches on the belly are well done :-) She looks very fast!

I like it

Josh Cantrell

July 23, 2012

This is awesome. I love how you added all the functionality. That stuff is hard to do!
There are some pieces that I've never seen before (the patterned tiles on the back and the piece that the rear thruster is housed in). That big rear piece looks like it might be the case of one of those Star Wars planet sets but I've never seen the tiles before.
Excellent, exellent build. This one must have took some planning and time.

Quoting Josh Cantrell
This is awesome. I love how you added all the functionality. That stuff is hard to do!
There are some pieces that I've never seen before (the patterned tiles on the back and the piece that the rear thruster is housed in). That big rear piece looks like it might be the case of one of those Star Wars planet sets but I've never seen the tiles before.
Excellent, exellent build. This one must have took some planning and time.

Thank you for your comments! Working out how to do the check pattern took quite a bit of time and then how to get the stripes on the underneath too. Once I'd done it, I had to make my first ever Bricklink order to get enough blue & white slopes. It was fun though!
The patterned tiles on the back wings are front a Technic set from around 20 years ago. It was a polar explorer theme and it wasthe first set to have the Technic figures in it.
There's a clue in the nickname of engine as to what the big part is. Have a look at set 9676.